Journalistic portfolio. I. What associations do you have when you hear the name John Peter Zenger?

I. What associations do you have when you hear the name John Peter Zenger?

World Biography on John Peter Zenger

John Peter Zenger (1697–1746), American printer, born in Germany, was an apprentice in the printing-office of William Bradford the elder. On 5 November, 1733, he began the publication of the “New York Weekly Journal”. This paper was the organ of the party that was opposed to the governor of the province, and was powerfully supported by Chief-Justice Lewis Norris. It abounded in lampoons and pasquinades that attracted wide attention, and attacked the government with severity, contributing greatly toward loosening the bonds between England and the colonies. On 17 November, 1734, Zenger was arrested and imprisoned by virtue of a warrant from Governor William Cosby and the council for “printing and publishing” several seditious libels. “The house of assembly refused to concur with the governor, and he ordered the mayor to burn the papers containing the alleged libels by aid of the hangman. The order was obeyed, but by the sheriff’s servant and the jury failing to find an indictment against Zenger, the attorney-general was directed to file information against him for the said libels at the next term of the court. His political friends employed Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, to plead his cause, which proved at the same time to be the question of the liberty of the press in America, and all the central colonies regarded the controversy as their own. At the trial the publishing was confessed, but Hamilton justified the publication by asserting its truth”. The jury gave their verdict “not guilty,” and Zenger, released from his imprisonment of thirty-five weeks, was received with tumultuous applause by a concourse of people who had assembled to learn the result. This event has been termed “the morn-lag-star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America”. The case has forever associated his name with the cause of freedom of speech and of the press in America.

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